At Rocketspark we’ve seen thousands of business names come across our screens, as people around the world make their own website with Rocketspark. Many of these businesses are people who have never owned a business before and have taken that great leap of faith to build their business from the ground up.
People usually put some good thought into choosing a domain-name-friendly business name — as they need to be able to buy a domain name relevant to their business name. Something a lot of people don’t consider is how search-friendly their business name will be. How hard will it be to rank in Google for your business name? If you’re a service business of any kind, it’s likely that the majority of your business will be word of mouth referrals. Whether word of mouth referrals happen at the water cooler or on Facebook, 91% of referrals will check out the website before making contact. If your business isn’t easy to find when they search your business name, you risk losing this warm referral.
The main pitfall we see with business names that aren’t search friendly is that they try and be too search friendly by making their business name the service type and location they work in — like sydneyaccountant.com.au or christchurchmotorservices.co.nz. We know that having keywords in your domain name can be a factor for better search rankings but if those keywords are highly competitive, there’s a good chance that your competitor’s websites will rank for your business name and you might not show on page one yourself — not ideal! Keywords in your domain name are not so significantly beneficial that it’s worth taking this risk. There are other ways to get your business to rank for your service or product type keywords.
From time to time we do see businesses ranking at the top of page one for their business name — where that is also something someone might search for their competitor with. However, it also means that their competitors are the second, third, fourth results on page one. If your business name doesn’t contain competitor-relevant keywords, it’s less likely your competitors will show up when someone searches for your business name.
The key takeaway here is that your business name should have at least some part of its wording that is unique to your business and if someone searches your business, page one isn’t dominated by your competitors.
